Performing Arts UX
Talent Pool
GLX is a talent pool presence that bring together talend to leveraging arguments of exposure. It provides exposure-footing by creating a profil, bio and connection history. I collaborated with Jesse, a graphic designer remotely, and in many conversations with the stakeholder and group director, Mishell Livio.
Project Challenge
The current state of the site has a static entry of background information for each performer.
Discovery
So many lessons learned on this project that span conding in Vue.js, deployment, and information architecture.
User Testing
Using mixpanel to track first-clicks and beyond, I tested the profile page to give the profile a home. The profile page was tested remote computer style, on the video app of choice by the interviewee, usually at dinner time. Among the interviewees, Holly Jessye and Karl all participated without having to share their desktop screen.
Competitive
Northlight, Ticketmaster, 4-Star and NBC where all analyzed as part of the competition to achieve a layout that works on
- photo size and placement
- what items are included as part of the contact details
- placement of copyright notice
Through dropbox paper tables we where able to make a tally of the important bits common across the established websites.
Comparative
I made a chart of industry terms to increase the efficiency of booking agents at finding talent. Included Backstage, Second City, Actors Access on what where the most used terms by:
- Count
- Used in navigation
- Used as categories in blog sections
We focused on this to make decisions about our url structure. The importance of the url is an SEO mainstay. Given it's importance, I set out to use Vue adjacent tools.
Design
Sketches
We started looking at the original. A long list that did not paginate. This can be inefficient to scroll all the way to the end, resulting in overlooking some key performers. Using Marvelapp and 3x5 cards, I sketched out about 3 final variations on a full cast landing page in order to choose a more compact collection layout. Over 20 performers now are shown within a square collection format.
Wireframes
I wireframes at least two views, starting with mobile, in order to look atpicture placement and text sizes given an unknown set of actor records. Justinmind prototyping software immediately help load a data collection into the first wireframes. It is important to not assume to much. When using a persona representation, I try to 'live it' throught the userflow and wireframing. If our persona, "Dori" is pulling out her phone as she's walking her dog -- it is only one instance. But finding loopholes is about at least living through "loop one."
Guidelines
I didn't want the user to have to learn and re-learn (two ways of doing the same thing), so at design merge, I kept the colors and font and focused on the root landing page. The initial components where Material-based components. I would use this to maintain alignment and uniformity. If we lived through a userflow, we can make those decisions live in a style guide.
Project Summary
- The proximity of name to performer is an important convention that reflects the real-world headshots that are handed in at auditions.
- Templates least serve the user on exposure goals
- I enjoyed reading the many varied bios of performers
- I got to delve in deep and live out the process of getting a headshot taken
- Having the hometown date as a connector category for the user or booking agent may be a great next step.
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